I was walking back to my car after photographing in a Caledonian Pine Woodland near to my home this morning when I started thinking about the recent images I had taken in the past week or two.
I tried to think of them as though they were a body of work. A collection of images that would go into a book or form the basis of an exhibition or even on the wall in my studio. It was then I thought how disjointed they would appear. Not only in subject, but in composition and editing. The above 2 images were taken within 2 hours of each other and only 30 miles apart but are worlds apart in style.
My mind was now racing. Should I introduce and encourage myself to become more consistent with all aspects of my photography. Images that would be recognisable as mine. Should I develop a style.
But, then I stopped, hang on, I’m not a computer, I’m not a robot. I’m a human being with feelings, with emotions. These can change from hour to hour, from day to day. At any given moment, I may feel happy or I may feel sad, I maybe melancholic or I maybe euphoric, I may feel confident or I may feel unsure, I may feel wanted or I may feel rejected. All these emotions are what make me what I am, a human being. And it’s because of this, my images can and do, vary from day to day and can even change during the course of a day. I don’t have a style.
My emotions can also change depending on the location or the weather conditions.
The Image here was taken on an incredibly windy day when it was difficult to stand up in the 70 mph gusts that swept in off the Atlantic. In that moment, I wanted to capture the energy of the day together with the beauty of the beach. I was a human trying to capture the exhilaration I was feeling.
One very wise old photography tutor once told me I needed a style of photography to succeed in the commercial world. But to embrace and nurture a style is to ignore your feelings, ignore your emotions. What I see, what I photograph, is a reflection of how I feel at the moment I take the photograph.
Should I have a style of photography, should I have a style of editing my images? If I was a computer, if I was a robot,if I was a wise old photography tutor, then yes, I probably should. But I’m none of those, I am a human being, my emotions change with time, hourly, daily. And so this perceived weakness of an emotional human being is actually our greatest strength. It’s what sets us apart from each other. We all see things differently.
The image here was taken on a beautiful calm Provence sunrise. I wanted to reflect how I was feeling in the moment with this image. Calm & reflective. A different feeling to the image above on the beach.
If I visit the same location on successive days and am faced with the exact same conditions, my mood maybe different and I can see what’s before me in a different way. I’ll photograph it differently, I’ll edit it differently.
Therein, lies the answer. The only consistency I have, is that it is me that photographs the image. I’ve learnt to embrace my moods and create an inconsistent body of work. But one of our greatest strengths is, we all see things differently. There’s no right or wrong.
So if that book deal ever came along, or that gallery ever asked me for some examples of my work, I couldn’t show them a robotic set of images. But I could show them what an emotional human being saw with his camera and how I felt when I clicked the shutter.
So on that walk back to my car this morning, I reached the conclusion that I was doing what was right for me, I just hadn’t figured out why I was doing it.
But the answer is, I’m human and I can’t produce a consistent body of work that dovetails nicely together. Every image is different because I felt differently each time I take a photograph. I’ve learnt to understand why I don’t have a style but I’ve learnt to create images based on how I feel at the moment.